Ma Ismuka?*

* "What is your name?" in arabic.



Nazrah tagged me with this meme.

I figured i better do it quick while I still can find 5 other people to tag next... tee hee.

So basically I have to tell you how my kids got their names.

I'm sure some of you have heard these stories before, (especially if you're related to me), so if you want, you can go ahead and skip to the end of the post and check if you've been tagged.



I never thought of my children's names when I was a teenager. I think I only started after I got married and the prospect of actually naming a child was very high.

There were two names that I really really really wanted to give my sons (somehow I didnt picture myself having girls). It all started when I was driving and I was thinking about how yummy Harrison Ford is and I got to a traffic light and I wondered wouldnt it be great if I could name my child "Harrison Ford", but of course I couldnt coz it's not a melayu name and my mom would freak out (not to mention my husband) so I thought of how I could make Harrison Ford's name sound melayu.



So I came up with "Hariss Anfard".

tee hee.

Then, naturally, the second yummiest person came to mind, and I thought of "Qiyan 'Urif" (with an 'ain, not a wau).

tee hee hee



Those two names really entertained me through the horrible traffic jam between M0torola and SS3.

When I was pregnant with my firstborn and found out it was a boy, I presented the names to Taufik and he asked what the names meant and I couldnt tell him and of course I can't tell him that I wanted to name my kids after Hollywood stars so I didnt pursue it further.



I don't remember what names I had picked, but I do remember that taufik was the one who had picked the name "Ilham".

Originally, we had wanted to name him "Ilham" only, without the Muhamad, because having a really long name like mine (title, my name, bust@man, binti, my dad's title, then my dad's name which consists of 'mohd' and his name - that's 7 items in my full name!), I knew how painful it is to have a long name. My fingers get cramps every time I need to fill out a form. But then, my in-laws insisted that we put a Muhamad in front of the name, because they think it's islamic (it's not, really.) So we conceded and we named our first boy as Muhamad Ilham bin Mohamed Taufik. (In the current school though, his teachers write his name as just 'Ilham Taufik')



Ihsan was also picked by Taufik. I thought it was a pretty good idea, because it follows a theme: both names started with an 'I', and both has a good meaning when combined with his name, like "Ilham Taufik" means "Taufik's idea" and "Ihsan Taufik" means "Taufik's gift".



Since Taufik had named the boys, I had wanted to name the 3rd child once I knew it was going to be a girl. Following the "I" trend, I wanted to pick "Iman", which means "Faith", so you know.. taufik's Idea, Gift and Faith. But then the family already had an 'Iman', so I scrapped that idea. Then my best friend passed away and I knew I wanted to name my daughter 'Suhaila', which means 'fluent, smooth flowing'. I decided to use Suhaila as a second name, and went to search for a first name that began with 'I'. I finally settled on 'Isma' which means "upbringing", with hopes that the upbringing of this girl would be smooth all the way. The night after I gave birth to my daughter, Taufik told me that he didnt really like the name "Isma" coz it sounded masculine (teringat kat Isma Alif lah tu), so he decided to name our daughter 'Anis' instead (Little did we know that 'Anis' is a boy's name in arabic). I checked the meaning of 'Anis' and found that it means "Giver of love". So in the end, our only daughter was named "Anis Suhaila", the fluent , ever flowing giver of love.



Taufik came up with Izani. I don't know where he got the idea. I had wanted to name him Imran (after the yummy former-cricket captain-now-politician Imran Khan) but I didnt mind Izani either. I couldnt find the meaning of the name in Arabic, but a friend said that it means "the obedient one" in farsi or something. I know 2 guys named Izani, and they both had exemplary personalities, so I didnt disagree with the name.



So there you go. Whenever anybody asks me who names our kids, I'd point to Taufik. He's the creative namer in the house.



These are the 5 parents I'm tagging:

1. Nina&firhad - kenalah tag keluarga dulu, kan? (lagiun kak long and didi sungguh malas nak blog sejak duamenjak nih)

2. Bear&Diah - i know you guys wanna know how Baby Pasha got his name too!

3. Zan&zul - maybe we can get insights on the new baby's name as well?

4. famygirl&famyboy - I hope this cheers her up after her sickness.

5. Onde-onde&Che'juan - coz her children's names have very beautiful meanings!